


Staying Up

by artsyUnderstudy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Castiel, Coming Untouched, Consensual Somnophilia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Exhaustion, Gentle Dean, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Light Dirty Talk, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Somnophilia, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:13:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyUnderstudy/pseuds/artsyUnderstudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sore and exhausted, Castiel feels the weight of his loss of grace, and Dean tries to fix it.  With touch, with words. Every way he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staying Up

The shape of Castiel’s bones twitch under his too-dry skin, hands still beautiful even caked with grime, dried blood wedged between his nails and broken cuticles.  Dean watches as they touch over the smoothed plastic buttons of his shirt.  The movement’s too damn slow, too unsure.  He can’t seem to manage it, losing traction, trying again.  Dean realizes, belatedly, it’s because Castiel’s trembling.  It’s a shudder that pulses from the tips of his fingers to his shoulder blades. 

Castiel’s eyes fall shut for a breath, for half a beat.  He leans forward marginally toward the mattress like he’s about to collapse in slow motion.

“Cas?” Dean asks gently.

Castiel’s entire body shudders at the sound and he rights himself.  His eyes are alarmingly unfocused when they open, bloodshot and bruised like he hasn’t slept properly in days.  They’re unnaturally bright, though, those spokes of blue near sun-bleached and piercing.  Dean lets his own jacket fall from his shoulders into a heap on the floor, Castiel still clutching uselessly at the last button of his shirt.  He gives up after the third try and just tugs it open, the little black button popping off and hitting the wall with a small click.

“Shit, man,” Dean chides with a nervous laugh.  Castiel doesn’t respond.

With a concentrated effort, Castiel pulls the shirt down over the sun-darkened skin of his shoulders, the lean cords of muscle in his arms contracting as the fabric pools to the floor beside his feet.  Castiel’s got those ratty jeans slung low on his hips.  Even worn and bruised he’s a picture of fucking perfection, hard lines of muscle and bone traced against his slender waist, a small trail of sparse, dark hair at his navel. 

Those eyes, though, and the crooked way he smiles, that’s what really does him in.

Dean wrenches his own shirt above his head, the soft cotton clinging to his still damp skin.  He breathes out in rasps as he moves to his belt, undoing it in one fluid, practiced motion.  He shoves the jeans down over his legs and kicks them off to the side. 

When he looks back up, Castiel’s hands are barely moving against his own belt, eyes glazed over before focusing on Dean.  Castiel looks everywhere but back into his eyes, dragging that solemn, controlled gaze across the bridge of Dean’s nose, his parted lips, the dip of his collarbone beneath his throat.  Dean warms despite the nervous tremor in the pit of his stomach.

Castiel tries to work his belt open again, and Dean can’t miss that grimace of pain at the movement.

Closing the space between them, Dean tangles his hands into Castiel’s dark hair and kisses him so fucking gently it’s barely even touch.  It’s more just breath over skin.  Castiel can’t seem to respond aside from a small, audible catch of breath in the back of his throat.  With a shallow sigh, Castiel lets his weight fall against Dean, arms gone slack at his sides.  Dean wraps his own arms around his waist to keep him steady. 

“The hell, Cas?  You shouldn’t be this wiped,” Dean murmurs against Castiel’s lips.

“I’d rather not be,” Castiel says, voice weak and low, turning his face into the crook of Dean’s neck.  Wordlessly, he begins to drag his teeth across the length of Dean’s broad, lightly freckled shoulder.  Dean bites back a groan.  Burying a kiss in the mess of Castiel’s hair, he breathes in smoke, and fumes, and salt.  “I’m tired.”

Dean feels a painful weight tight against his lungs as he backs them both to the edge of the bed.  He pulls Castiel down toward the mattress till he’s flat on his back, chest rising and falling in uneven, shallow pants.  Even breathing normally is a fucking chore at this point.  This isn’t tired, this is bone deep exhaustion. 

Dean leans over him and presses a kiss to the dead center of his throat before he starts to loosen Castiel’s belt.

“I’m not an infant,” Castiel tells him angrily, and all Dean can do is place another kiss right below his naval, laughing against the heated skin.  He hopes it doesn’t sound as hollow as he thinks it does.

“Let me take care of you,” Dean says simply, tugging the pants down over Castiel’s dark, fitted briefs.  Once they’re gone, shucked to the floor with the rest of their clothes, Dean reaches out to wrap his hands around Castiel’s thighs.  He feels the muscles tighten beneath his fingertips.  “Did you get hit with somethin’? We got almost a full seven hours last night, man.”  Dean tries to keep the worry out of his voice, but whenever they stop moving, whenever the quiet sets in, that’s when it gets difficult. 

“You did,” Castiel says, voice ragged, “I didn’t.” 

Dean rubs his thumbs in small circles against Castiel’s thighs before he moves away, Castiel pulling his limbs in toward his chest to compensate for the loss.  He’s like that now that he’s human, where before touch had seemed almost extraneous to him, something he never really knew how to seek out even if he had the urge.  Now, he seems hungry for it, like it’s the only thing that ties him here.  It’s so… human.  

Dean lies on his side, faces him, waits for an explanation.  Castiel doesn’t give him one.

Reaching out, Dean pulls him easily against his chest.  They interlock, Dean’s front to Castiel’s back, legs tangled together.  He can feel Castiel’s hair brushing up under his chin, his right arm trapped beneath Castiel’s body and pressed tight across his chest, hand over his heart.  Sometimes Dean wishes he could solve every damn problem just by holding him close enough, feeling that steady beat thrumming against his palm.  His free arm drapes across Castiel’s bare hip, fingers brushing idly against his flat stomach.  Castiel’s breathing stutters.

“Talk to me,” Dean says, words pressed firmly against his pulse, just under his ear.

“I forget.  It’s so easy to forget sometimes.” Castiel says, his voice that low, gravely mess it always is.  “In Salina, while you were interviewing Emily’s family, I met someone.  He was sick, and I didn’t think about it.  I just…”  Castiel raises his arm in front of him and extends two fingers.  It’s a pantomime of healing.  “Nothing happened.”

Dean pulls Castiel so close he thinks they could meld together that way, hearts thumping identical rhythms against each other’s skin.

“I am just so much… _less_ … than what I was.”  Castiel takes Dean’s hand in his, laces their fingers together above Castiel’s beating heart.  The heart he needs now, the heart that belongs to him.

“Bullshit,” Dean says, pressing his lips into Castiel’s hair.  Castiel just sighs, his body going lax. 

Dean listens to the sound of his breathing, labored at first, and he sooths it with barely-there touches to Castiel’s overheated skin.  He runs his palm across his knee, fingertips brushing between his legs as he moves up toward his hip.  Castiel sighs and opens an inch of space between his knees, Dean dipping his hand down to gently massage his inner thigh.  The heel of his palm brushes up against Castiel’s soft dick, earning him a small twitch of interest and a barely audible hitch of breath.

“Dean,” Castiel almost whimpers, and Dean smiles at the sound.  No other lover has ever said his name the way Castiel says it, like it’s sacred, like it’s more than just a word to be murmured in the heat of sex.

Dean doesn’t move to press harder, keeps it soothing and rhythmic.  Castiel doesn’t ask for more.  He just lets Dean touch him until his eyes fall shut, the last string of nerves and tension leaking out of his body, siphoned away by Dean’s gentle ministrations.  Dean keeps touching him even after his breathing goes quiet and soft, his chest hardly moving beneath their still entwined hands.

It could be minutes, or hours laying there, just feeling him, spooning like teenage sweethearts who’ve finally been allowed the comfort of another body while they sleep.  It’s sacred in the way a first kiss is sacred, a first touch, a first intermingled breath. 

His name on Castiel’s lips.

Castiel sleeps, and Dean presses kisses to the base of his neck.  He draws a line across his shoulder, halfway down his arm with the softest brush of his lips before he makes his way back up to the warm skin below his ear.  His heart races in his chest, partly from worry and partly from affection, but he doesn’t allow it to make him hasty.  He’s been that so often, and tonight they’re allowed to be something else.

“You scare me sometimes, man,” Dean whispers, pressing his hips flush against Castiel, a soft, unhurried rolling motion that feels way better than it should because he’s so raw right now.  Because he feels so goddamn much.  “It’s not cause you need sleep, or food, or that you bleed… too much sometimes… but that’s not what scares me.”

Dean reaches back toward his bedside table, grabs a small bottle and places it on the bed beside him, within easy reach.  Then he wraps his free arm around Castiel’s waist to join the other, rolls his hips again and bites his lip.  It kills him how much he wants Castiel.  Like this, still dirty, exhausted, worn thin.  He wants all of him, wants everything he’s willing to give.  Wants to return it pound for pound.

“I know what that’s like… to measure what you think you’re worth with what you can do for other people.  And it’s so easy… to believe they measure you the same goddamn way.”  Dean kisses the lobe of Castiel’s ear, listens to him breathe for a moment.  “That they only care as long as you’ve got somethin’ they can use.” 

He runs his hand over Castiel’s hip, following the shape of his bones with his fingers.  He moves down, thumbs the waistband of Castiel’s briefs.  He teases the skin beneath it, and Castiel breathes out a small little whine, his chest shuddering as he presses back against Dean. 

“And maybe it’s my fault,” Dean whispers, “Fuck, I know part of it is because I’ve never been good at this, at talking…”  Dean reaches down over the lean muscle of his stomach, dips down below his briefs and touches the tip of Castiel’s half hard cock.  He ruts up against him once, if only to stave off the need that burns low in his gut.  “But you haven’t been a tool to us… not for a long time.  I don’t care if you can’t smite demons or… heal me with a touch.”  Dean laughs softly, cupping his hand over Castiel’s heat, feeling him shudder in his arms.  His breathing is still slow, still shallow except for the small, nearly inaudible whines when Dean moves the right way, when he trails his hand down between his thighs.  Castiel can’t even hear him, and Dean knows he should say this shit when he can.  He can’t seem to stop himself, though. 

“You can still heal me with a touch, Cas…”

He’s not sure when he fell so hard, got so deep.  It happened so slowly, so easily, like there’d never been any real choice.  He’d always end up here, loving him.

Dean pulls his hand away and reaches to grab the small bottle from beside him, unwilling to move himself further away from Castiel than he absolutely has to.  He keeps a tight grip on Castiel’s hand, still pressed against his chest.  He undoes the cap with his thumb, nosing the short hair at the back of Castiel’s neck as he finds a way to hold the bottle in his opposite hand without dropping Castiel’s hand in the process.  With a concentrated effort he manages to coat his fingers. 

He pulls away, face still pressed against the back of Castiel’s neck even as the space widens between their bodies.  He runs his hand down his back, over the dip at the base of his spine and under the soft cotton of his briefs until his slick fingers press against that warm, tight ring of muscle.  Castiel’s entire body shudders, and Dean kisses his neck.

“It scares me that you can look at me and tell me that even after everything I did in hell, everything I’ve done in my life, that my soul is still beautiful and that I’m worth saving.”  He presses the first finger into that heat, feels Castiel clench and relax around him, sighing out through parted lips.  He pushes back against him, even in his sleep, and fuck if that isn’t the most beautiful goddamn thing.  “And you still can’t do yourself the same courtesy.  Sometimes I think you just keep going because it’s your duty to keep going.  And fuck, I’m glad, because if you gave up on me man…” his breathing shudders, and he pushes in past the second knuckle and out again, a smooth and practiced motion.  Castiel trembles in his arms, soft little pants, little whines that shoot straight through Dean, leave him needing.

“But there’s more.  You’re more,” Dean says, his heart aching with how much he means it.  “It’s not that you could heal them, it’s that you cared enough to want to.”

He lets himself press up against Castiel for a second, even as he works him slowly, carefully.  He’s achingly hard now, so much so that it hurts not to seek more friction, but this isn’t about him.  This is about Castiel.  This is about _Cas_.

“You and your big stupid heart.”

Castiel shudders, and Dean’s not sure if it’s because he’s got two fingers in him now of if he’s finally woken up, listening to all his desperate little confessions.  Dean just kisses him, up the column of his throat and the edges of his cheekbones, pulling Cas in closer to get at the corner of his mouth.  God he wants to kiss him.  Needs to kiss him.  He’s needed that connection since they first fell into bed together.

Dean pushes his fingers in as far as he can manage, crooks them, rubs until Castiel’s mouth drops open, breathing hard and fast like it’s being wrung out of him.  He hopes Castiel never stops being surprised at how good things can feel.  Dean sighs against his skin, scissors his fingers, pumping in and out and pressing against that spot that makes Castiel arch back in pleasure again and again until his whole body has gone slack and shaking.

“Dean,” Castiel says, his voice wrecked, and sleep drunk, and thick with need.  “Dean, _please_.”

“Tell me what you need,” Dean says, voice too shaky to be sexy but Castiel doesn’t seem to care because he’s falling apart in his arms, the grip on Dean’s hand vice-like, his heart pounding so hard it might break through his chest.

“You.  Need you, always _you_ ,” Castiel answers, the words punched from his lungs along with those panting breaths as Dean works him harder, grinding up against him, chasing that desire.  He wants to slow down, to savor this but fuck Castiel is greedy for the touch and soon he’s got three fingers in and he’s rolling his hips against him, his throbbing cock finding purchase against the curve of Castiel’s spine.  Castiel pushes back like he needs it and it’s perfect.  He’s _perfect_.

“Kiss me,” Dean says, and it’s almost a sob but Castiel cuts it off with the hard press of his lips.  Dean finally unwinds their fingers and pushes his hand through Castiel’s dark, messy hair.  It’s like intoxication, getting to taste him after wanting it _so badly_. 

When he pulls his fingers out of that slick, fucked open heat Castiel groans into his mouth, and Dean kisses him softly, latching a thumb under the waistband of his briefs.  He pushes them toward his knees.  Castiel reaches down to help and together they shuck them off completely, kicked to the floor or wound up in the sheets, Dean can’t be sure. 

There’s only the one thin layer of fabric between them, between his heavy cock and Castiel’s ass and he’s rutting up against him, too impatient to undress himself just yet because he wants to feel this, to feel _him_.

“Please,” Castiel says against his lips, and Dean really can’t say no to him, not like this, so he forces himself to pull away, just long enough to push off his own boxers.  Once they’re gone and Dean can feel skin against skin, he reaches down and latches his arm up under Castiel’s knee.  Castiel gives into him easily, pliant and limber as Dean pulls Castiel’s knee in toward his chest, spreads his legs wide so he can press in closer, almost there but not quite.  

“I want you,” Dean says, voice broken as he rolls his hips forward, barely pressing the tip in before he pulls away.    It’s driving him crazy, he’s right there, but Castiel is humping into open air, his cock painfully swollen and twitching, precum beading at the tip.  It’s amazing when Castiel wants it this badly, because that’s how Dean feels all the fucking time.  The desire for him is always so goddamn overwhelming.  Dean’s long since stopped running away from it.  He just wants Castiel writhing in his arms, drunk on pleasure, begging for him. 

Castiel doesn’t make a move to touch himself even though he’s obviously desperate for it.  Something about that twists up Dean’s stomach in the best way, sending sparks of pleasure down through his body.

Dean moves forward again but this time he doesn’t stop at the pressure, he pushes through it, pleasure building at the base of his stomach so intense he fucking groans into Castiel’s hair.  Castiel’s chest is heaving, his limbs gone soft and heavy as he relaxes around him. 

“So good - _fuck_ \- so, so good baby,” Dean sighs out as he buries himself as deep as he can, Castiel’s muscles tightening and loosening around him so fucking perfectly that he could come just like this.  He breathes him in, kisses his neck gently as he pulls out and pushes back in, shallow, and teasing, and nothing that he _needs_.  Castiel groans his frustration but Dean keeps up the motion, fluid and gentle, making sure for him it’s nothing but pleasure. 

Dean reaches up slowly with the hand not slung around Castiel’s leg, and runs his fingers over Castiel’s throat, up under his stubbled jaw, grazing his swollen, wet lips and finally moving to cup his cheek, running a thumb over his cheekbone.  Then he thrusts in – _hard_ – to the hilt and back again, a forceful, desperate motion.  Castiel’s mouth drops open, a small ‘ _unh_ ’ in the back of his throat.

“That good?” Dean asks, voice gruff and low as he buries himself again.  “Feel good, baby?”  His chest is heaving as sweat beads and falls down across his brow.

“Perfect – so perfect, Dean – please, please _more_ ,” he begs, reaching back to thread his fingers through Dean’s hair, pulling him closer until their lips meet, devouring him, drowning in him.  Dean is fucking him hard now, his hand tight against Castiel’s thigh, fingernails leaving white crescent-shaped marks against his tanned skin.Castiel’s lips fall open, his breath hot and heavy across Dean’s parted lips.  His tongue darts out to wet them, to taste them, and all Dean can do is keep moving. 

 “Dean,” Castiel gasps, rutting back against him, head tipped back until it rests in the crook of Dean’s shoulder.  Dean places a kiss into his hair, damp with sweat now, and slows his pace.  “Dean, I want –“

“Anything,” he says, and it comes out as half a gasp, turning his hips just slightly so he’s hitting against Castiel’s prostate with every stuttered thrust.  Castiel goes momentarily still before he groans, his whole body trying to curl into itself, wracked with pleasure.  Dean kisses him again, fucking into him harder just so he can feel that clench, the way Castiel can’t seem to process how he can possibly feel this good even as he chases _more_.

“I want you on your back,” Castiel growls, all that fire and brimstone and sex in his voice like he was when they met, when he didn’t know what it was to doubt.  Dean fucks up into him hard for that, teeth clamping down against his shoulder, soothing the hurt with his tongue.  Castiel tastes like salt and earth, his body trembling like he’s got a storm trapped inside him.

Then Dean pulls away, all too quickly.  His front feels cold and empty without the body he’s been pressed against for what feels like hours.  He sprawls out on his back, his cock curving up against his stomach, aching with the loss.  He bites his lips but  Castiel doesn’t make him wait long.  He turns to face him before slinging a leg over his hip, back arching in one languid roll before he pushes himself up to sit on Dean’s lap.  Dean reaches out, settles his calloused hands against the soft skin of Castiel’s hips.  His thumbs dig into those jutting hipbones and Castiel rolls his shoulders forward, tired eyes closing as his mouth opens in a perfect, sinful ‘ _oh_ ’.  Castiel is all hard lines of muscle, but he’s long and lean, built for speed, built to bend.

Castiel moves like the roll of the ocean, languid and fluid and arching back on itself.  Their cocks brush and Dean moves into the friction, into the promise of heat and pleasure.  Skin and _skin_ and sweat and need; aside from Castiel’s name stuck between his lips it’s all he knows.  This is all they are.  Castiel rolls his hips, once, then twice and then in another smooth motion he pushes himself up and back down and all Dean can feel is pressure and heat around his aching cock.  Castiel clenches around him, tight and perfect.

Dean looks up at Castiel, then, his shoulders hunched and shaking, eyes half lidded and blown black.  He moves, rotating his hips until he finds that spot that makes him gasp, and he takes it, he clenches his thighs around Dean’s waist and pushes himself up and down, looking almost like he needs to curl into himself from the pleasure of it.  Dean feels that heady bliss, too, but he’s too transfixed by the man above him to let it overwhelm him.  Castiel’s muscles tighten as he moves, skin slick with sweat, his hair wet and stuck to his forehead in soft curls.  He’s the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen, and he’s wrecked for Dean.  He’s completely falling apart. 

His cock looks painfully swollen, falling heavy against Dean’s stomach, and Dean reaches out to take it is his hand, but Castiel just shakes his head.  “No,” he says, voice too high, too breathy.  “I want it like this.”

Dean swallows, pushes himself up on his elbows so he can reach out a hand to run through Castiel’s hair.  He pushes back his bangs and Castiel looks up at him, his eyes watery, intense and focused and roving over Dean.  “You gunna come for me like this, baby?” He breathes, and Castiel nods, fervently, and as an act of resolve he fucks down harder.  Dean groans, the pleasure ratcheting up his body so hard and so intense he almost falls back onto the mattress, his arms suddenly useless.  He manages to stay half upright, though, pulling Castiel’s face forward until their foreheads touch. 

Castiel kisses him, for a single, perfect second, before his mouth falls open against Dean’s lips.  He lets out a soft sob and Dean noses his cheek, litters his face with kisses under his eyes and over the bridge of his nose.  “So good, Cas, so good for me, wanna see you come apart,” he breathes a litany against his slick, heated skin.  “Come on, _fuck_ , you feel so fucking good… so perfect.”  Castiel fucks down harder, arms trembling with the effort to keep himself upright.  “Need you to come for me, Cas, just for me…”

Castiel curls in on himself, a few more stuttered twitches of his hips before he’s gasping, his whole body shaking as he comes in stripes all over Dean’s stomach.  Dean hears his name, entwined between his heaving pants and sobs, feels a fleeting kiss fall against his lips.  After a moment, a long shudder and gasp, Castiel’s body stills and he sinks forward against Dean’s chest.  He wraps his long arms around Dean’s waist and buries his face in the hollow of his throat.  Dean wraps Castiel up with his own strong arms, thrusting up into him gently as he presses kisses into his hair.

“I love you.  You know that, right?” Dean whispers, feeling himself on the brink, his heart swelling as the pressure builds, threatens to spill over.  “Love you so much it fucking hurts.”  He fucks up into him harder, his movements erratic, the pleasure almost blinding but not enough, not close enough. 

Castiel sobs against his skin, presses his mouth against his throat.  “I know,” he says, brokenly.  “I know.  I love you.”  Dean’s never been a praying man, but he’ll whisper desperate prayers of thanks into his angel’s skin for that every day till he’s dead.  Dean thrusts up one more time and he’s coming hard, pleasure pulsing through him, making him weak.  His face is buried in Castiel’s hair, that sweat and damp.  He seizes, trembles, wraps his arms tighter around Castiel who’s moving again, working him through it, wringing every last ounce of blinding ecstasy out of him. 

They both sink into one another, breathing slowed.  Castiel reaches down to grab the edge of the comforter, pulling it up over their shoulders before he wraps his arms tight around Dean’s waist.  Neither of them moves to separate, Dean’s cock going soft inside him, cum between their legs and stomachs.  Dean just closes his eyes, lets Castiel kiss him, open mouthed, sweet and slow. 

They fall asleep like that, entwined in every way.


End file.
